Solar panels 'not a loss to agriculture' says farm co-owner in advance of King's Speech

The King's Speech yesterday announced the establishment of Great British Energy – a publicly-owned 'clean energy' company, focused on investing in renewable energy projects such as offshore floating wind farms, in collaboration with the private sector.

James Nason of the Pitchford Estate near Condover, south of Shrewsbury co-owns a 22MW solar farm with two other landowners. The solar farm covers 120 acres, and spans a former RAF airfield and agricultural land.

Mr Nason is encouraged by the Government’s ambition on solar.

He said: "It’s showing strong leadership at this point in the Parliament which gives the industry the right signals.”

But he is less sure about Great British Energy and awaits more detail on what it will do.

He wonders if too much hope has been pinned on the policy.

“The record of the state in energy has not always been brilliant – for example the onshore wind moratorium and Dash for Gas,” he says.

Since the solar farm was constructed 8-9 years ago Nason says he hasn’t had a complaint about it, despite opposition at the start from locals.

He said solar panels are “great for farmland still being grazed – it’s not a loss to agriculture.”

“Shropshire is dotted with the sites of former Industrial Revolution energy infrastructure.

"We’ve always deployed infrastructure when we’ve needed it. When we don’t need it, it goes”.

“There was a bit of opposition at first, dealt with the right way through the parish council and planning authorities, and we took a few fields out of the scheme.

"There was a pragmatic approach where people listened to each other”.

Last weekend, Ed Miliband announced the Government would “unleash a UK solar rooftop revolution” to triple solar capacity by 2030, at the same time as granting approval for the construction of three large solar farms in the East of England.

Jon Hallé, CEO of Shrewsbury-headquartered Big Solar Co-op, said it welcomes the new Government's focus on rooftop solar.

"In many cases putting solar on rooftops is still unnecessarily difficult," he said.

"Planning rules in most parts of the country prioritise heritage over Net Zero: we've had to reduce the size of the solar we're putting near a listed building because the panels could be seen at the same time as the back of the building from one angle!

"Planning exemptions are not dealt with uniformly across the country. Our antiquated grid and connection rules mean that we are restricted in what we can put on rooftops - even in places where all the electricity generated would be used on site.

"Investment in solar receives no subsidy whatsoever but we don't get the tax reliefs that other investments can access. Local authority procurement rules and lack of resource are holding back lots of solar that we would be ready not only to build, but to pay for."